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[infowar.de] Systems fail to deliver
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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Systems fail to deliver
Federal Computer Week: www.fcw.com
BY Diane Frank
Jan. 11, 2002
Systems fail to deliver
The digital Pearl Harbor the technology world fears already happened
Sept. 11, when information
technology failed the intelligence community, according to a CIA
official.
Gilman Louie, president and chief executive officer of the CIA's
venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, said Jan.
9 at the Federal Convention on Emerging Technology in Las Vegas that in
a time of crisis, today's IT
systems fall short.
The IT systems in place at the CIA and at other agencies within the
intelligence community have made
analysts less efficient, because they spend valuable time searching for
information stored in many
different locations, Louie said. The systems don't allow users to
quickly find or compare data especially if the search terms aren't
exact.
"We had an IT failure ? all of the systems that we put together with
the best intentions weren't doing the job," he said. "We couldn't
fuse the data."
This fact was made glaringly clear Sept. 11 when CIA employees at
almost every level ended up printing out stacks of paper and
searching them manually because it was faster than searching through
data stored in IT systems, he said.
Although there are many valuable new tools and products on the market,
what is most needed is a way to provide data to any
authorized person from any secure application or device at any time,
Louie said.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was caused in part by the fact that
intelligence information was spread among many agencies that
were unable to put together the pieces to see the attack coming, Louie
said. Then-President Truman created the CIA to help gather
all of that information in one place.
Since then, the specialized IT systems put in place throughout the
intelligence community have remained separate, spreading the
information out so far that the threat of Sept. 11 so obvious in
hindsight was again obscured, Louie said.
In-Q-Tel's mission is to find and fund commercial technologies that
could help the agency's and the intelligence community's mission.
It is already considering many of the vendor proposals that came in
after Sept. 11, but more importantly there is now "an outstanding
desire to change" within the government, Louie said.
"We're at a unique time where it's obvious what the threats are, we
have suppliers of the technology willing to engage, and they want
to do more than donate blood, and we have agencies that are saying, 'We
have the need, we have the desire to change,' " he said.
Olivier Minkwitz___________________________________________
Dipl. Pol., wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
HSFK Hessische Stiftung für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
PRIF Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
Leimenrode 29 60322 Frankfurt a/M Germany
Tel +49 (0)69 9591 0422 Fax +49 (0)69 5584 81
Mobil 0172 3196 006
http://www.hsfk.de
minkwitz -!
- hsfk -
de___________________________________________
-- HTML Attachment decoded to text by Listar --
-- File: print.asp
Federal Computer Week: www.fcw.com
[IMG]
[IMG]
Systems fail to deliver BY Diane Frank[1]
Jan. 11, 2002 Printing? Use this version.[2]
Email[3] this to a friend. RELATED LINKS ][IMG][IMG]
In-Q-Tel[4]
"The ripple effect"[5] [Federal Computer Week, Sept. 24, 2001]
The digital Pearl Harbor the technology world fears already happened Sept.
11, when information technology failed the intelligence community, according
to a CIA official.
Gilman Louie, president and chief executive officer of the CIA's venture
capital firm In-Q-Tel, said Jan. 9 at the Federal Convention on Emerging
Technology in Las Vegas that in a time of crisis, today's IT systems fall
short.
The IT systems in place at the CIA and at other agencies within the
intelligence community have made analysts less efficient, because they spend
valuable time searching for information stored in many different locations,
Louie said. The systems don't allow users to quickly find or compare data
especially if the search terms aren't exact.
"We had an IT failure —all of the systems that we put together with the
best intentions weren't doing the job," he said. "We couldn't fuse the
data."
This fact was made glaringly clear Sept. 11 when CIA employees at almost
every level ended up printing out stacks of paper and searching them
manuallybecause it was faster than searching through data stored in IT
systems, he said.
Although there are many valuable new tools and products on the market, what
is most needed is a way to provide data to any authorized person from any
secure application or device at any time, Louie said.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was caused in part by the fact that
intelligence information was spread among many agencies that were unable to
put together the pieces to see the attack coming, Louie said. Then-President
Truman created the CIA to help gather all of that information in one place.
Since then, the specialized IT systems put in place throughout the
intelligence community have remained separate, spreading the information out
so far that the threat of Sept. 11 so obvious in hindsight was again
obscured, Louie said.
In-Q-Tel's mission is to find and fund commercial technologies that could
help the agency's and the intelligence community's mission. It is already
considering many of the vendor proposals that came in after Sept. 11, but
more importantly there is now "an outstanding desire to change" within the
government, Louie said.
"We're at a unique time where it's obvious what the threats are, we have
suppliers of the technology willing to engage, and they want to do more than
donate blood, and we have agencies that are saying, 'We have the need, we
have the desire to change,' " he said. Advertisement
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1 mailto:dfrank -!
- fcw -
com
2 /print.asp
3 javascript:email()
4 http://www.in-q-tel.org/
5 http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0924/pol-ripple-09-24-01.asp
6 http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/fcw.dart/story;sz=160x600;tile=11;num=[static_number]
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